pro-life vs. pro-choice...is there a difference?

i've been reading a number of views on the matter here, and the majority of self-identifying 'pro-lifers' say this: i wouldn't do it, and i don't believe in it, but i'm not about to force my beliefs onto others. isn't that in essence pro-choice? i think that the pro-life label is essentially an erroneous one; whatever your personal feelings on abortion, you either support a woman's right to choose, or you don't. in effect, doesn't that make the two sides of the debate pro-choice and ANTI-choice?

and there is no conflict whatsoever. I would gently persuade and educate people to choose life but wouldn't force it on anyone.

Welcome to the good old game where you have to name it to claim it.
The catchier the rhetoric the better.

Think back to Federalist vs. Anti-Federalists....

whose minds are made up.. and both sides will NEVER agree to any common ground..

Next ????

and most of those who are bitching about the current law won't ever be faced with the choice.
don't like abortion? don't have one. see...common ground.

In fact I helped pay for an illegal one in 1968.. but the point I was making is that this "tired argument/question/issue" will never achieve agreement by either side..

I personally wish that the people who are against pro choice would .."move on...get over it...move forward.. and stfu.:)

i recall your story in one of the threads last year :hi: perhaps it was in my "face of abortion" thread where many women here shared their stories.
no...there will never be agreement unless our side caves. the bottom line: abortion is a healthcare decision that is nobody's business except the person or persons involved. end of story.
the current law is common ground, but of course, the other side isn't interested in common ground...they want complete control of women's wombs.

and do not beleive in choice should be called Anti-Choice period. I don't think there is anybody that is not pro life and certainly I can not remotely think that pro choice people are pro death. The correct titles for these groups are pro-choice vs anti-choice with the issue of life and when it begins being up to the idividual, their families and their doctors.

Like the estate tax, being called the death tax.

Life began hundreds of millions of years ago. It has been passed along in a continual stream of living stuff ever since.

People who produce gametes are alive, gametes are alive (although they are haploid and mostly doomed to a particularly short life expectancy), zygotes are alive as are the embryoes, fetuses and babies they regularly develop into.

"When life begins issue" is an artifical issue. It is important to a legal system and insurance companies looking for objective standards for the application of laws and contractual provisions as well as religious authorities.

But asking when life begins during development is an inappropriate question. Consequently it can't be answered meaningfully and we are left with determinations which must be seen as very arbitrary and unsatisfactory.

Let's face it. Abortion ends the life of a developing diploid individual at the same time it terminates a pregnancy. It sounds harsh, sure. But if we can face the ugly reality that abortion is life ending and still make an argument to accept it then we have a _really_ good argument.

If one side pretends to be pro-life, then their hope is to imply that the other side is anti-life.

Taking a page from the tactics manual that suggests the moral high ground is the superior position in political matters the abortion issue gets dressed up in all manner of arguments to keep from falling off that high ground. Thus the individuals that wish to make abortion illegal call themself Pro-Life. This has several effects including making the supporters of these rights seem to be Anti-Life.

Like wise those who are wish to protect the right to abortions attempt to distance themself from the very word because of the negative social connotations it has been saddled with. Thus they claim to be Pro-Choice.

Both labels dance around trying to maintain the claim of the higher moral ground. Ufortunately for the Pro-Choice crowd, they are so reticent to deal with abortion word and dealing with the moral ethical issues of the matter that they have abandoned the moral argument of abortion itself. Thus the religious right has charged in there and leveraged graphic images and misunderstood concepts of human biology and thereby captured the moral highground on this issue.

This leaves the Pro-Choice crowd clinging to the Woman's right to control her own body argument. And though valid is not as effective in turning public opinion. It is much more effective to use unfair appeals to peoples misinformed emotional sense of a matter than it is to argue the high concept of the rights of of a woman over the rights of a fetus. The simpler argument will win more recognition in the public.

and where did you get 'em? way cool

I don't remember wher I found them.. but I have "borrowed" them :)

For when people get sick of the Spidey-made-you-gay one. It should put an end to the endless cat threads in the lounge.

:cry:..

You gotta know by now that ..I Luvs mah kitties :)

But the discordian in me calls out and must be answered. No worries though, its more cute than anything else.

good stuff kids. Glad to see the 'net is good for something.

Most who claim to be "pro-life" are merely pro-birth. I maintain that being pro-life means to not just to value life but the quality of those lives. But routinely those on the rabid right defend gross social inequities, practices that are destructive to the environment... even the death penalty.

The Catholic Church, while anti-choice, deserves some kudos for at least trying to promote those other pro-life values.

you wrote:

"and the majority of self-identifying 'pro-lifers' say this: i wouldn't do it, and i don't believe in it, but i'm not about to force my beliefs onto others. isn't that in essence pro-choice?"

You are correct-- this is the essence of 'pro-choice'. Someone who claims to be 'pro-life' and offers this as their view on the issue, simply doesn't know what the term has historically meant. 'Pro-life', again historically, has meant believing that human life begins at conception and therefore ought to be protected under the law even in the womb (i.e., terminating said fertilized ovum, zygote, fetus should be prosecuted as murder).

Some here have mentioned that they are 'pro-life', yet for a woman's right to choose an abortion. If that is truly the case, would you be willing to place a big, bold bumper sticker on your car that reads: "Pro-Life! And Proud of it!" If your answer to that question is no, then you understand the diffences in the terms.

There were a number of herstoric elements that commingled themselves in the 1960's to bring about a change in the North American attitude toward abortion. The Second Wave women's movement began to organize to oppose the rampant discrimination against women and especially women of child bearing age. As a part of the brainstorming sessions in that movement abortion began to be seen as an essential element in the choices available for family planning and indeed life planning for women particularly. Another element that played into the political and social mix was the fact that demographers had seen the effect of the baby boom and knew the repeat of that birth ratio by the boomers themselves would create intolerable social planning turmoil and overcrowding conditions. Abortion had always been a part of that planning but it was illegal and not only dangerous from the women's point since there was no guarantee of quality medical care if an abortion was required - but also dangerous to those physicians who engaged in the clandestine performance of abortion as a result of their desire to assist patients or prevent butchery of women. Furthermore the procedure was becoming far safer to perform and the introduction from Europe of the Suction Dilation method for early abortion made it difficult to continue to claim that with trained medical personnel the procedure was dangerous.

The initial objective of the people who wanted this choice of abortion available to women was to remove the legal sanctions against it. They recognized that calling themselves pro abortion would be interpreted as forcing abortion as the prime alternative in all gestation decisions. Since these were mainly women they also recognized many or a majority of their group would decide to carry to term to term as usual whether the choice to abort was available or not. For this reason they called themselves 'pro abortion rights'. The pro-abort label was quickly applied by opponents however and in an effort to counter the negative image the name 'pro choice' was coined by Lawrence Lader of the National Abortion Rights Action League.(NARAL - originally called National Association For Repeal of Abortion Legislation).

At that time, again mid to late 60's, another paradigm shaping movement - the anti war movement was - working hard to bring Vietnam to a close. Being an 'Anti' was not "politically correct" (a term that was not yet coined) for the conservatives and Republicans, who, with a concerted effort and huge expenditures of funds on the part of the Roman Catholic Church primarily, were the people mainly opposed to legalizing abortion.

Now while those who wanted abortion to remain illegal initially called themselves 'anti abortion' they soon coined the more 'positive' sounding 'pro life' appellation. A quick perusal of the participants of the legislative debates on the issue shows, not only direct catholic involvement through the lobbying efforts of senior prelates but also Vatican sourced directives. The "charismatic movement" was also in full swing in the Catholic church at the time and this also provided a further reason for joining forces with Ecumenical christians. Thus a marriage of convenience was arranged and the Protestant church and the former, and in other issues current, Anti Christ found themselves in bed together. In fact the 'abortion issue' became a reason for the rising mainly protestant Religious Right and Roman Catholics to finally "sleep with the enemy".

Both groups, pro and anti, were set up to deal with the legality of abortion and that is what they were initially directing their efforts toward. As time went on, and New York legalized abortion followed by more states, and eventually the Roe and Casey decisions in the USA (and later Morgentaler in Canada), the focus changed. Now those opposed began to emphasize the 'moral objections' a little more and - given the religious background of the pro life movement - apply guilt as a weapon in opposition to abortion. Where there had been no help in the past for unwillingly pregnant women there were suddenly "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" set up to prevent abortion through the careful application of guilt and a mixture of false information and at times intimidation. Interestingly when guilt was thrown into the picture the phony studies also started and PASS and Breast cancer as a supposed result of abortion were mixed in. At this time furthermore, now that they had invented the 'illness', the anti abortion side decided to treat the women 'suffering' from the 'illness'.

Given their less than honorable rise it is no surprise that the latest ploy of the anti abortion movement is to persuade those they have convinced they suffer from PASS or any 'abortion induced suffering' to launch frivolous and vexatious lawsuits in an effort to deter qualified physicians from providing abortions. One might recognize that in fact this is an effort to make abortion less safe which will result in the death of women - so the term Pro Involuntary Gestation (PIG) is sometimes used for this particular group.

{NOTE I do not intend this in any way to be translated as a statement on my part that there are no negative emotional sequelae to abortion in some few women - but simply as a statement that PASS as an illness does not exist.}

Since the topic under discussion in this thread is abortion when the term 'pro-choice' is used it naturally means pro the choice of the subject under discussion and not "for the choice of which breakfast cereal to use or which SUV to scorn". However this term has led to the use of equivocation on the part of those who oppose abortion and the frequent pretence they do not understand 'what choice' is being talked about in abortion forums. Rather than continually battle the tide of logical ignorance the term 'Abortion choice Supporter (AS) has been adopted which eliminates the possibility of equivocation. Furthermore since the term 'pro life' also lends to a similar equivocation fallacy the term Abortion Opponent (AO) has gained acceptance to replace it. You will find these terms popularly used in such news sources as the Washington Times and the SF Chronicle. You will find both of these in current usage and this is my preferred method of assigning the sides in this debate - except when an opponent decides to deliberately throw insults in my direction in which case I adopt "playground rules".

- Eileen`s always in process page -


Eileen

for your wonderful website. I've used it for reference in the past.

If the anti-choicers were really "pro-life," they would be lining up to take care of all those babies they want the law to force women to have.

They would see to it that the babies were nurtured, fed, changed, cared for. They would work hard to support them. They would send them to college.

They are religious zealots much like the Puritans who forced Quakers to pay fines for not attending Puritan sabbats. Too bad we have to work so hard to keep the faith exhibited by the Founding Fathers that government and religion do not mix.

Accurately, they should be known as "anti-woman."